Street Photographer’s Work Discovered A Few Days After Her Death

Vivian Maier's street photography was recently "discovered" just a few days after she died at the age of 83. The Chicago nanny took over 100,000 photographs and many say she may rank among the top street photographers of the 20th century.

@Lee, that's what I thought when I read the title of the post. It was a pleasant surprise, though, when I watched the video. Thanks for this post, I'm pumped up to always press that shutter everday. This is a truly inspiring story. Thanks!

We don't really know the reasons why someone would shoot that much never to show it. Perhaps she never thought of herself as worthy, yet her recluse lifestyle kept her from interacting with people that could have made her realize what she had accomplished.

We don't know, but she certainly had to realize that once she was gone her work would be exposed. It could very well have all been incidentally destroyed and never seen. We are fortunate it went into the hands of someone who appreciated her work.

John should send all of the negatives to a company like Scan Cafe and have them professionally scanned. Let them know what you have and I'll bet they would work out special rates just to help get them digitized for historical purposes.

Absolutely amazing work. I do hope they do several shows and some world tours, her work definitely warrants it. Truly passion drove her to shoot and I'm sure she just kept on shooting just to capture that split time in life that says it all.
Great story, great find.

What an awe inspiring event that is happening here.... Kudo's to John for recognizing the value of amazing photographic art. I have chills just seeing the few images here, I can't imagine what other greats are in those boxes.

@goodfella, one reason she might not have shared her work was because she didn't really have an audience at the time. Seems like very few prints were recovered which means she just didn't print much. I'm not sure how you get better as a photographer by only seeing your negatives but something tells me most people would feel extremely proud to have their work on this sort of platform years after your death.